Thread: FEM issue?
View Single Post
      08-01-2012, 12:48 PM   #10
dude987
Second Lieutenant
Germany
41
Rep
244
Posts

Drives: BMW 335i xDrive M-Sport DHP
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Stuttgart

iTrader: (0)

BMW Group FEM

Funny you should ask.

It was raining off and on during the three hour drive home from Munich to Stuttgart. During a torrential heavy down pour a few miles from home, I heard a sudden knock on the driver side door (I think it may have been the door lock) and the brake light indicator came on with the hazard lights flashing. Multiple attempts at turning the hazard lights off did not work. I pulled off on the next exit and found a place to park while the heavy down pour continued. After fiddling with the various switches I found that the door locks, hazard light switch, and navigation menu did not work. When the windshield wiper was turned off it would stop dead mid stream in the middle of the window and not retract into the down position. But it would start again and work fine when the switch was reactivated.

The next action was to turn off the car as if to put it away for the night, give it a few minutes and restart the cars i.e. a soft boot. This required some thought as there was a degree of uncertainty on exactly how the electrical ignition worked. Anyways, no luck. In Germany everything shuts down on Sunday. It’s 4:30 pm on Saturday afternoon. Quick batman, get us to the nearest BMW dealer about 6 clicks down the road. Upon arrival, the dealership is pretty much shut down with the exception of one service person in the shop. He hooks up the diagnosis gizmo to get a read out of the faults. Not sure what faults he got partly due to the language barrier. The service guy disconnects the battery for a hard reboot. Again no luck. He tell me that they will look at it next Monday morning and gives me a Mini Countryman as a replacement car.

Not sure what happened but can only speculate that water may have infiltrated a barrier and possibly short circuited an electrical component. More to follow next week.
Appreciate 0